Cinema Basement

A retrospective by Brooks Rich I'm back from hiatus. Had to regroup and find my creative center. Let's kick the blog back off with a weird romantic drama from 1980 that stars Gary Busy as a dunk tank clown and Robbie Robertson from The Band as his partner at a carnival.  Frankie is a dunk tank clown. Patches sells the balls people throw to dunk Frankie. Donna wants to escape small town life. Together the three of them form an odd love triangle set among the carny life of early '80s America.  Sometimes we feature a film on Forgotten Film Friday that is forgotten for a reason. I get why this film has faded into obscurity. It is a weird little movie with an unsettling tone. Gary Busey is a dunk tank clown and this is not part of the slasher movie boom of the '80s. The sexual politics of this film have not aged that well either. Jodie Foster was around eighteen when she made this movie and although that's not illegal it still has an ew factor.  But there is something ab...

   A retrospective by Brooks Rich One of my favorite sub-genres in fiction is magic. I love a good story about a magician - they tend to follow similar story beats to the con man genre. Cop shows usually have an episode where a magician is the killer and the hero has to match wits with him. Magicians can either be the heroes or the villains. Even when they are the heroes, there is always a slight edge to them. They aren't squeaky clean. Not every film I cover as a forgotten film is a lost masterpiece. This film is not a cinematic marvel. In fact, it is fairly routine - not awful but more TV movie quality. It is the debut of director Caleb Deschanel, who is a cinematographer of some significance. He is perfectly serviceable, but he wastes his cast with a workman-like style. It is forgotten because it is not that interesting looking. It’s seriously lacking in style. I won't reveal too much of the plot - it is fun to see it unfold. Basically, young Danny Masters tries to follow i...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Joe Pesci is Leon "Bernzy" Bernstein, a freelance photographer in 1940s New York. He is known for out scooping the competition and always finding the perfect shot, especially murder scenes. Night club owner Kay (Barbara Hershey) asks him to look into a man who has been hustling her for money. Bernzy is soon involved in a murder plot with ties to the mob and gas prices.  This was Pesci's first leading role since winning the Academy Award for playing Tommy in Goodfellas. It was an attempt to captizilaie on his fame from Goodfellas. Sadly for Pesci and writer/director Howard Franklin the film was a commercial bomb. It only returned about three million of it's fifteen million dollar budget. This is truly a forgotten film as honestly I only saw it for the first time recently.  Sometimes I will watch an obscure movie to see if it is worth covering as a forgotten film. I have seen plenty of unknown films I didn't think were worth being fea...

 A retrospective by Forest Humphrey Trigger Warning: “Wind River” depicts and deals heavily with the subjects of sexual violence, self harm and drug abuse.  2017's “Wind River” forms a kind of thematic trilogy with writer/director Taylor Sheridan's previous two films “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water”. Sheridan has a knack for this kind of “modern western” and takes his work to dark places. If you've seen the aforementioned films you know you're in for a gritty and tense thriller that is not afraid to deal with heavy subject matter. On the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, hunter Cory (Jeremy Renner) discovers the body of a local young woman in the snow, miles from anywhere. When the tribal police investigate, they discover the woman had been raped, and contact the FBI. They send one rookie agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to assist in finding out what happened.  The film's plot is as straightforward as they come, but everything else around it is what I believe...

 A review by Forrest Humphrey In the aftermath of “Avengers: Endgame”, Thor decides going on space adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy is just what he needs to get back into his groove. Its on one of these wacky scenes that the Guardians get a distress call, one of particular interest to Thor. Something out there is going across the universe killing gods, and New Asgard might be next. So Thor parts with the Guardians and returns to Earth to confront this new threat, discovering his old flame Jane Foster has also somehow rebuilt Mjolnir after Hela destroyed it in “Ragnarok”. Now Thor, Jane, Valkyrie and Korg have to deal with a new villain, Gorr the God Butcher, before he finishes doing what his name implies. Up front, I think this is a mix of things I like more than the last film and some I like less. Up front, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson are still here to put in work, and Natalie Portman's return comes along with what is hands down her best outing in these movie...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Middle aged childless couple Richard and Rachel are desperate to have a child. They have exhausted every option it seems, fertilization treatment, adoption, everything. In a last desperate effort they ask their niece to be an egg donor, which she immediately agrees to.  Writer director Tamara Jenkins is someone I don't think gets her fair shake. I find honesty in her films. Her slice of life stories feel real, with the perfect blend of comedy, drama, and a little bit of cringe. Much like real life. I'm a big fan of her previous films Slums of Beverly Hills and The Savages. Seek out both especially The Savages. It has the immortal Phillip Seymour Hoffman in it. But I think Private Life is Jenkins best film so far.  Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn are fantastic in this. Hahn gives the performance of her career in this. She is astonishing as Rachel, showing the vulnerability sorrow, hope, and anger that comes with the situation. Jenkins is grea...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Sheet music salesman Arthur Parker (Steve Martin) begins to have an affair with a schoolteacher in 1934. His wife does everything she can to win him back. When Arthur breaks off the affair, the schoolteacher becomes a prostitute. But fate may reunite her and Arthur. Life is tough in the depression. Sometimes the characters need an escape, even if it's into a fantasy music and dance number. Herbert Ross' Pennies From Heaven was a box office bomb in 1981, recouping just a fraction of it's 22 million dollar budget. The film was critically acclaimed and even gained an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay. But the audiences just didn't turn up for this one. It makes sense. Entering 1981 Steve Martin was a comedy all-star, whether it be guesting on Saturday Night Live, his standup, or the 1979 classic The Jerk. Audiences weren't ready to see him play a pretty unlikeable guy in a weird musical where the song and dance numbers are fan...